Eleusine.] Graminece. 279 



versely rugose, red-brown, pericarp hyaline, more or less 

 persistent. 



Northern Province (Moon) ; near Mantai (Trimen). Southern Pro- 

 vince; near Bundala, and Tissa-maha-rama Tank (Trimen). Spikes 

 green. 



Sandy shores of Coromandel and the Carnatic. 



A single specimen in Herb. Peraden., collected by Moon, bears the 

 number C. P. 3250, which is omitted in the ' Index of C. P. numbers ' 

 appended to Thwaites's Enumeratio, as it is in the body of the work. 

 It has been referred to seven genera, and received fifteen names. It 

 resembles, in inflorescence, JEluroptts villosus. 



4. S. aeg-yptiaca, Desf. Fl. Atlant. i. 85 (1798). 



Trim. Cat. Ceyl. PL 109. Dactyloctenimti csgyptiacum, Willd. Enum. 

 Hort. Berol. 1029; Thw. Enum. 371. C. P. 941. 



FL B. Ind. vii. 295. Duthie, Fodd. Grass. N. Ind. t. 35. Rheede, 

 Hort. Mai. xii. t. 69. 



Annual, very variable in habit ; stems many, spreading 

 from the crown, decumbent and rooting below, then ascend- 

 ing and either slender, subsimple, and 12-18 in. high, or 

 very short, stout, copiously di-, trichotomously branched, 

 the branches often prostrate, short, divaricate, leafy, roots 

 capillary ; 1. in tall stems 4-6 in., narrowly linear, acuminate, 

 flaccid, flat, smooth, in short robust specimens \- 1 in., 

 subulate-lanceolate, rigid, glabrous or ciliate towards the 

 rounded, subcordate, or simple base, margins nearly smooth, 

 sheaths compressed, long in slender states, very short and 

 often inflated in short-leaved states, upper sometimes spathi- 

 form, ligule obscure ; ped. long and slender to very short 

 and stout, sometimes shorter than the upper 1. ; spikes 2-5, 

 digitately radiating from the top of the ped., under ^-1 in. 

 long, \-\ in. diam. across the spikelets, rhachis narrow, 

 trigonous or dorsally flattened, rigid, smooth or puberulous, 

 sometimes excurrent in a pungent mucro; spikelets innumer- 

 able, 3-4-fld., many-seriate, tV~s" m - l° n g ar >d broad, densely 

 crowded at right angles to the rhachis, 3-4-fld., very strongly 

 compressed, rigid, base bearded, rhachilla hardly any; glumes 

 divaricate, I and II 1 -veined, I oblong, cymbiform, acute 

 or obtuse, II broadly oblong, turgidly cymbiform, deeply 

 2-lobed, awned between the lobes, awn as long as the glume 

 or shorter, rigid, flg. glumes gibbously ovoid, tip notched with 

 a pungent often recurved mucro, keel smooth or minutely 

 scabrid, side veins o, palea shorter than the glume, ovate- 

 oblong, obtuse or 2-toothed, keels scabrid or hispidulous ; 

 anth. minute ; styles short ; seed orbicular, tubercled, retain- 

 ing the hyaline pericarp when ripe. 



Common in the warmer parts of the Island. Spikes green or coloured. 



